You’ve been a working actor for quite a while now, but I believe you’re relatively new to writing. Is Just Joking your first play? What made you decide to pick up the pen (or keyboard, as it may be..)?   

Just Joking is my first “full-length” play, whatever that means. I’ve always liked writing– I wrote a lot when I was younger, but, as I’m sure we’ve all experienced, as I got older I became more self-critical and hard on myself. And because of being so self-conscious and truly my own worst critic, I kind of passed writing up. When I moved back to Fredericton from Toronto for work in late 2018, I was part of this small writing group that Ryan Griffith had started. I joined because I really wanted to get back into writing and kind of force myself to share my work with others. It was mostly prose writing I did with the group, but I experimented with some short scene writing. Playwriting was always so intimidating to me, which is maybe weird because I deal with scripts all the time as an actor, so I also challenged myself by taking Jena McLean’s playwriting class last spring to plunge myself into that writing style! I’m still finding my way with writing scripts, what works for me and how I go about doing it, but I find myself thinking of ideas for future scripts all the time now.  

Tell us a bit about Just Joking—where the play came from and how it’s evolved over the last few months. What’s working with festival dramaturg Jena McLean been like? 

So, during my time with the writing group, Ryan had said to try and write every day to exercise the “writing muscle” to stay with it, and he said to try “Word of the Day” apps to spark some creativity and ideas of where to start. And that’s exactly what I did. One night the word was ‘hirsute,’ which means hairy, and my brain was like “Hey, what about someone trying to wax their back?” and I went with it. Which is such a weird and wild thing to say out loud. It started as a very short scene with nameless characters, then I couldn’t stop thinking about it and expanded on it a bit more to fill it out, and then it sat untouched until this past fall. I had been binging a bunch of 90s/00s romcoms, and I felt compelled to pick it up again and fill it out even more.  

Working with Jena has been nothing short of amazing. I really appreciated having another set of eyes (professional eyes at that) on my script to see where things maybe were redundant or repetitive or could be delved further into when I hit a wall. How the characters and their relationship have grown over this process–I couldn’t be happier. They truly feel like fully realized people now, and I loved creating more tension between them and building up their decades-long connection with such small and seemingly mundane details. Jena was always incredibly supportive and patient, and they listened to my reasonings and concerns and ideas and ramblings, which was something I’m extremely grateful for because the imposter syndrome was very real. 

This is your first full-on NotaBle Acts experience, not just writing a show but playing the lead role in our mainstage production of Influentia, and also a multi-character role in the reading of Jena’s new play. What are your impressions of the festival, and how did you manage that very demanding role in Erin’s play while also doing rewrites of Just Joking? 

I think the festival is such an incredible thing to have, to foster an environment not only for local writers but actors and crew! It’s such a heartwarming time: to see people of all ages and backgrounds sharing their stories and talent with audiences and to have the opportunity to work with a professional dramaturge to acquire more skills for future writing projects. And the excitement to see shows and be a part of the festival is palpable.  

I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling pretty exhausted. I’m very grateful for my long days at theatre school for prepping me for times like these! Thankfully I had finished most of my re-writes before rehearsals started, so I didn’t have to worry too much about that while learning lines. And rehearsals honestly were such a breeze with the cast and crew we had. Everyone worked so well together and we were having fun, so things came pretty easy and fast. It was tiring from going from one emotional extreme to another as Darah without any real off-stage breaks, but I love me a challenge. And doing multiple parts for the reading of Like Confetti was another challenge I loved taking on: finding distinct characteristics to distinguish each part just in voice (Jena’s writing helps so much with how you hear and visualize the characters, so I had some help. The bigger challenge was not bursting into tears while reading her beautiful words in front of the audience). Acting is my passion and it’s my job, and I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to participate so much in this year’s festival in that capacity, but also being able to wet my feet in the writer’s world. 

What do you hope the audience takes away from Just Joking? 

I hope audiences take away that it’s okay to be vulnerable: to let people in, to share with others, to express how you feel. Maybe that’s cheesy, but I truly believe that. Just be able to hold space for yourself to be vulnerable and tell people you love them. And not necessarily in just a romantic way, either. I’ve lost a lot of people in my life, and one of my biggest regrets is that I never told them how much I cared about them and loved them enough, and that’s something I can never redo. So I’ve been trying to not take for granted the people I have around me and how much they mean to me, and telling them as much. If there’s anything I’ve learned from rewatching all those romcoms it’s that you really have to live in the now. And that’s scary– believe me, I was such a painfully shy person (basically up until my early 20s), and terrified of expressing any of my feelings to anyone. But it’s okay to be scared and nervous and shy. Let your friends, your family, your partners– whoever– know how much they mean to you. It may feel like a risk at times, but I think being vulnerable with someone can set off a domino effect of others being vulnerable, and I think vulnerability fosters courage and care, and there’s nothing wrong with spreading courage and care.